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Publications

Affordance Based Design:
    To obtain access to one of the secure files, email a request.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2001) "Affordance: The Fundamental Concept in Engineering Design", ASME DETC/DTM, Pittsburgh, PA, Paper No. DETC2001/DTM-21700. (Secure Access)
        Our first published paper on Affordance Based Design, with several examples and contrasts with Function Based Design.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2002) "Comparing Function and Affordance as Bases for Design", ASME DETC/DTM, Montreal, Canada, Paper No. DETC2002/DTM-34029. (Secure Access)
        An expansion of the theoretical differences between functions and affordances, beginning to draw on complexity theory.

  • Maier, J.R.A. and G. M. Fadel (2003) "On the Complexity of the Designer-Artifact-User System", Proceedings of ICED 03, Stockholm, Sweden. August 19-21, 2003. Paper no. 1366. (Secure Access)
        The first published work on the Designer-Artifact-User (DAU) complex system, arguing that DAU systems are Complex Adaptive Systems.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2003). "Affordance-Based Methods for Design", Proceedings of ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, Chicago, IL. Paper no. DETC2003/DTM-48673. (Secure Access)
        Responding to the need to operationalize the theory of affordance based design, this paper presents our early method for using affordances in engineering design.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2004). "A Validation Case Study in Affordance Based Design", Technical Report DETC2004-57335. (FREE Access)
        A conference paper that was never published that examines the actual design process used for a consumer product (the Oxo bottle stopper/opener). The original designer's sketches reveal how the affordances of the final product were conceived and taken advantage of throughout the design process.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2004) "Understanding the Complexity of Design", Proceedings of The New England Complex Systems Institute Fifth International Conference on Complex Systems, Boston, MA, May 16-21, 2004. Paper no. 305. (Secure Access)
        A much deeper theoretical treatment of why affordances are a more general paradigm for design than functions, tying together ideas from complexity theory, mathematics, and biology.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2005). "A Case Study Contrasting German Systematic Engineering Design with Affordance Based Design" Proceedings of ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, Long Beach, CA. Paper no. DETC2005-84954. (Secure Access)
        Drawing on a published case study of a design using Pahl and Beitz functional design methods, this paper presents contrasts with affordance based methods.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2006). "Understanding the Complexity of Design", in Complex Engineered Systems, Dan Braha, Ali Minai, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, eds. Springer. (Secure Access)
        The ICCS conference paper, here included as a chapter in a book on Complex Engineered Systems, published by the New England Complex Systems Institute and Springer.

  • Maier, J. R. A. (2006). "How Structure Influences Behavior", General Systems Bulletin, Volume 35, pages 13-15. (FREE Access)
        General systems theory has long held that structure influences behavior. Whether it be the structure of a business organization influencing the behavior of its employees, or the structure of a consumer product determining what users do with it, this principle is well established as an empirical fact. In this article ideas from affordance based design are applied to explain and predict how structure influences behavior, and how designers can take advantage of it.

  • Maier, J. R. A. (2006). "Design and Evolution: Morphogenesis and Metamorphosis", Proceedings of the Design History Society Conference 2006, 31 August - 2 September 2006, TU Delft. (FREE Access)
        This short abstract posits the idea "that natural design and artificial design are really the same thing at their core, driven inexorably by the affordances of dynamic systems, and not be individual designers." This idea is the basis for an extended manuscript that is still being written.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2006). "Affordance Based Design: Status and Promise". Proceedings of IDRS'06, Seoul, South Korea. (FREE Access)
        A good general overview of affordance based design.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2007). "Identifying Affordances," Proceedings of ICED'07, Paris, France. August 27-30, 2007. Paper no. 591. (Secure Access)
        Chiefly a response to some criticisms in the literature of our previous work, this paper presents four methods for identifying affordances in practice.

  • Gaffney, E. S., J. R. A. Maier, and G. M. Fadel (2007). "Roles of Function and Affordance in the Evolution of Artifacts," Proceedings of ICED'07, Paris France. August 27-30, 2007. Paper no. 592. (Secure Access)
        A case study showing how affordances continue to evolve over time even when the functions of a product remain fixed. This paper also integrates ideas from Altshuller's Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ).

  • Maier, J. R. A., S. Anandan, V. Bapat, J. D. Summers, and B. Bettig (2007). "A Computational Framework for Semantically rich Design Problems Based on the Theory of Affordances and Exemplar Technology" Proceedings of ICED'07, Paris France. August 27-30, 2007. Paper no. 510. (Secure Access)
        An outline of approach to incorporating more semantic information into geometric design models using affordances as a key concept. The approach described was the basis for an NSF funded research project.

  • Maier, J. R. A., T. Ezhilan, and G. M. Fadel (2007). "The Affordance Structure Matrix - A Concept Exploration and Attention Directing Tool for Affordance Based Design, Proceedings of ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, Las Vegas, NV. Paper no. DETC2007-34526. (Secure Access)
        Continuing our work in developing practical methods for affordance based design, this paper presents a matrix based tool for comparing affordances to product structure.

  • Maier, J. R. A. (2008) "Rethinking Design Theory," Mechanical Engineering 130(9):34-37. September, 2008, ASME. (Secure Access)
        A brief explanation of the conceptual power of the affordance based approach, written for a broad audience for the magazine of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

  • Maier, J. R. A., J. Sandel and G. M. Fadel (2008). "Extending the Affordance Structure Matrix - Mapping Design Structure and Requirements to Behavior," Proceedings of DSM'08, Stockholm, Sweden. 11-12 November, 2008. (FREE Access)
        An extension of the original affordance structure matrix which now takes into account whether components have either harmful or helpful effects on each affordance.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2009). "Affordance Based Design: A Relational Theory for Design." Research in Engineering Design. 20(1): 13-27. (Secure Access)
        The most complete theoretical treatment of affordance based design to date, integrating all of our previous work on the subject.

  • Maier, J. R. A. and G. M. Fadel (2009). "Affordance Based Design Methods for Innovative Design, Redesign and Reverse Engineering." Research in Engineering Design. 20(4): 225-239, (Secure Access)
        A follow up to the first paper in R.E.D., which focused on theory, this paper focuses on practical methods, including all the methods for designing affordance first presented in the 2003 DETC paper, our recent work with the affordance structure matrix (ASM) and concept selection based on affordances.

  • Maier, J. R. A., G. M. Fadel and D. Battisto (2009). "An Affordance Based Approach to Architectural Theory, Design, and Practice." Design Studies. Vol 30.(Secure Access)
        Our attempt to apply the concepts of affordance based design developed for engineering to the field of architecture.

  • Maier, J.R.A., G. Mocko, and G.M. Fadel (2009). "Hierarchical Affordance Modeling" Proceedings of ICED'09, Stanford, CA. August 24-27, 2009. Paper no. 314. (Secure Access)
        In this paper we show how an affordance structure matrix can be used to study how affordances emerge and propagate upwards from the component level up to the sub-system and system level.

  • Maier, J.R.A., J. Sandel, and G.M. Fadel (2009). "Experiments Comparing Function Structures to Affordance Structures" Proceedings of ICED'09, Stanford, CA. August 24-27, 2009. Paper no. 321. (Secure Access)
        After comparing affordance structures and function structures for various consumer products, we concluded that the principal advantage of the function based representations is the ability to capture different kinds of flows between functions. The principal advantage of the affordance based representations is the ability to distinguish between helpful and harmful relationships and specific user groups.

  • Maier, J. R. A., R. Sachs, and G. M. Fadel (2009). "A Comparative Study of Quantitative Scales to Populate Affordance Structure Matrices", Proceedings of ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, San Diego, CA. Paper no. DETC2009-86524. (Secure Access)
        Here we compare the usefulness of different numbering schemes used to generate affordance structure matrices, from simple binary (zeros and ones) through much more granular scales (one through ten, etc.)

  • Maier, J. R. A., T. Troy, P.J. Johnston, V. Bobba, and J.D. Summers (2010). "Case Study Research Using Senior Design Projects: An Example Application." ASME Journal of Mechanical Design. 132(11).(Secure Access)
        Here we demonstrate the interactions modeled in the Designer-Artifact-User complex system as they were evidenced in an undergraduate senior design project.

  • Maier, J. (2011). Affordance Based Design: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications VDM Verlag. (Secure Access)
        A full length book detailing the theoretical basis for affordance based design, as well as practical methods and a host of case studies.

    To obtain access to one of the secure files, email a request.



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